Joseph Mallord William Turner, 'Sun Rising through Vapour', before 1807

Sun Rising through Vapour

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Room 36

About the work

Overview

It is low tide in the early morning and fishermen unload their catch from a boat beached high and dry on the shore. Some people enjoy a meal. Others prepare the catch for sale. This human activity contrasts with the stillness of the glassy sea which, like a mirror, reflects the hazy sunlight. The pale yellow sun is not yet hot enough to burn off the sea mist – the ‘vapour’ referred to in the picture’s title – which gives the large warships in the background an almost ghostly aura.

As a study of a calm, smooth sea, this picture was a departure from the wild storms of Turner’s previous marine paintings. The boats and figures recall the work of Dutch painters, an influence acknowledged by the picture’s later title, Dutch Boats, when it was exhibited in Turner’s own gallery in 1810.

In-depth

It is low tide in the early morning and fishermen unload their catch from a boat beached high and dry on the shore. Some people enjoy a meal. Others prepare the catch for sale. This human activity contrasts with the stillness of the glassy sea which, like a mirror, reflects the hazy sunlight. The silvery-white sheen of the water complements the gold-tinted clouds. The pale yellow sun is not yet hot enough to burn off the sea mist – the ‘vapour’ referred to in the picture’s title – which gives the large warships in the background an almost ghostly aura. On the horizon (centre right), you can just see a faint plume of smoke as a ship fires a morning gun.

A drawing inscribed ‘Study / Calm’ in his ‘Calais Pier’ sketchbook of about 1802–5 shows that Turner settled on the painting’s theme and composition early on. A ‘calm’ (a smooth sea) was a favourite subject in Dutch marine painting – for example, van de Velde’s Dutch Ships in a Calm, also in the National Gallery’s collection. As a study of a calm, Turner’s painting was a departure from the wild storms of his earlier marine pictures such as Calais Pier. Instead of combining dramatic action with a dynamic handling of paint, Turner used rich colours laid down as finely painted surfaces to create a tranquil, even slightly elegiac, mood. This ability to paint the sea in contrasting states further consolidated his reputation as primarily a ‘great sea-painter’. The emphatic focus on the sun as the source of light is a feature of several of Turner’s compositions, but here he also adds incidental details such as the objects on the beach, including an anchor, driftwood and stranded marine life.

The work of Dutch painters, including Aelbert Cuyp and Willem van de Velde, is also evoked by the boats and figures – an influence acknowledged by the picture’s later title, Dutch Boats, when it was exhibited in Turner’s own gallery in 1810. Some of the figures, especially, resemble those painted by David Teniers the Younger, particularly the hunched figure wearing a red Flemish cap seen from behind. Such details imply that Turner intended to suggest a Dutch setting, but not necessarily a specific location. As one contemporary noted, Holland’s North Sea coast faced west, so it would not have been possible to see a sunrise over the open sea from the mainland.

Turner himself had great affection for the painting. It was bought by Sir John Leicester, one of his major patrons, but when Sir John’s estate was sold at auction upon his death in 1827 Turner bought it back for a higher price. In his second will, made in 1831, Turner specified that the picture, together with his Dido building Carthage, should hang ‘in perpetuity’ in the newly built National Gallery alongside Claude’s A Seaport and Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah. Turner revisited the subject when, around 1809, he painted a smaller modified version, Sun rising through Vapour, which is now in the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham.

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Sun rising through Vapour: Fishermen cleaning and selling Fish
Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
Artist dates: 1775 - 1851
Date made: before 1807
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 134 × 179.5 cm
Acquisition credit: Turner Bequest, 1856
Inventory number: NG479
Location: Room 36
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Joseph Mallord William Turner
Frame: 19th-century English Frame

Provenance

Purchased from the artist in December 1818 by Sir John Fleming Leicester, 5th Bt (cr. 1st Baron de Tabley of Tabley House, co. Chester, 10 July 1826, d. 18 June 1827), by whose executors sold Christie’s 7 July 1827 (46), bt by Turner himself; with Dido building Carthage, specifically bequeathed by Turner to the National Gallery, to be ‘placed by the side of Claude’s “Seaport” and “Mill”’, on condition that they were accepted and so placed by the Gallery within twelve months of Turner’s death on 18 December 1851; by agreement with Turner’s executors, placed in the National Gallery in accordance with Turner’s wishes, formally entering the Collection upon the Court of Chancery’s decree settling litigation over Turner’s will, 19 March 1856.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Judy Egerton, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings’, London 2000; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2009

Turner and the Masters

Tate Britain

23 September 2009 - 31 January 2010

Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais

22 February 2010 - 24 May 2010

Museo Nacional del Prado

22 June 2010 - 19 September 2010
2012

Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude

The National Gallery (London)

14 March 2012 - 5 June 2012

Bibliography

1819

W. Carey, A Descriptive Catalogue of Paintings by British Artists in the Possession of Sir John Fleming Leicester, Bart, London 1819
1821

J. Young, A Catalogue of Pictures by British Artists in the Possession of Sir John Fleming Leicester, Bart., with Etchings from the Whole Collection, London 1821
1857

R.N. Wornum, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, with Biographical Notices of the Painters: British School, London 1857
1879

P.G. Hamerton, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., London 1879
1908

W.G. Rawlinson, The Engraved Works of J.M.W. Turner, 2 vols, London 1908
1928

W.T. Whitley, Art in England 1800-1820, Cambridge 1928
1930

W.T. Whitley, Art in England 1821-1837, Cambridge 1930
1939

A.J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., Oxford 1939
1946

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, London 1946
1946

M. Davies, Paintings and Drawings on the Backs of National Gallery Pictures, London 1946
1951

H.F. Finberg, 'Turner's Gallery in 1810', The Burlington Magazine, XCIII, 1951, pp. 383-6
1959

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1959
1960

D. Hall, 'The Tabley House Papers', The Walpole Society, XXXVIII, 1962, pp. 59-122
1965

J. Gage, 'Turner and the Picturesque', The Burlington Magazine, CVII/742, 1965, pp. 16-26
1969

D. Hirsch, The World of Turner, New York 1969
1974

G. Wilkinson, The Sketches of Turner, R.A., 1802-1820, London 1974
1977

K.D. Nicholson, J.M.W. Turner's Images of Antiquity, Phd Thesis, University of Pennslyvania 1977
1978

A. Macintyre and K. Garlick (eds), The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 5, New Haven 1978-1984
1978

D. Robertson, Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World, Princeton 1978
1982

M. Butlin and E. Joll, L'opera completa di Turner 1793-1829, Milan 1982
1983

M. Kitson, 'Turner and Claude', Turner Studies, II/2, 1983, pp. 2-15
1984

A. Wilton, 'The "Monro School" Question: Some Answers', Turner Studies, IV/2, 1984, pp. 8-23
1986

S. Whittingham, 'A Most Liberal Patron: Sir John Fleming Leicester, Bart., 1st Baron de Tabley, 1762-1827', Turner Studies, VI/2, 1986, pp. 24-36
1987

P. Bicknell and H. Guiterman, 'The Turner Collector: Elhanan Bicknell', Turner Studies, VII/1, 1987, pp. 34-44
1988

D. Hill, 'Turner at Farnley Hall', in Turner's Birds: Bird studies from Farnley Hall, Oxford 1988, pp. 9-24
1990

S. Ginzburg, Turner, New York 1990
1990

E. Shanes, Turner: The Masterworks, London 1990
1994

F.G.H. Bachrach, Turner's Holland (exh. cat. Tate Gallery, 22 July - 2 October 1994), London 1994
1995

K.D. Kriz, 'Dido Versus the Pirates: Turner's Carthaginian Paintings and the Sublimation of Colonial Desire', Oxford Art Journal, XVIII/1, 1995, pp. 116-32
1997

J. Hamilton, Turner: A Life, London 1997
1998

J. Egerton, The British School, London 1998
2000

Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings, revised edn, London 2000
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2003

P. Spencer-Longhurst, The Sun Rising through Vapour: Turner's Early Seascapes (exh. cat. The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, 24 October 2003 - 25 January 2004), Birmingham 2003
2004

J. Collins, Turner, Whistler, Monet (exh. cat. Art Gallery of Ontario, 12 June - 12 September 2004; Grand Palais, 11 October 2004 - 17 January 2005; Tate Britain, 10 February - 15 May 2005), Toronto 2004

Frame

This nineteenth-century English frame, crafted in pinewood and oil-gilded, has housed Turner’s Sun Rising through Vapour since 1986. It is embellished with English neoclassical-style ornaments made from composition. The back edge is decorated with a ribbon-and-stick pattern. The top edge features a guilloche, which is followed by a plain hollow with acanthus-leaf corners. The sight edge is embellished with a leaf-and-tip motif.

When the frame was chosen to accompany the painting, it was in poor condition and required significant restoration, including the addition of a new back and sight edge, with new composition designs to replace missing sections. The damaged gilding was also covered with oil gilding to restore its appearance.

It is unclear what frame originally accompanied Sun Rising through Vapour when it entered the collection, although discussions about reframing began as early as 1958. In the late 1960s, a plain, modern architectural moulding was fitted before the current frame replaced it.

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

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